Ravelling
by Pyrasaur
Summary: The layers peel, worked and pulled and torn loose. He just doesn't like what's underneath. EdgeworthMia


The first wrapping opened easily -- crackling clear cellophane, the alertness strung tight between two sides of a courtroom. Slamming the defense stand, Fey braced and stood glaring, a most defiant of cats. She bled care and rage and sorrow, never weakness. Edgeworth stood tall, facing a worthy quarry, one who struggled. _Rivals_ seemed an apt word, if generous -- if foolishly noble.

She began seeking him, when trials imposed no order and her mouth softened, smiling. Pleasantries were a barrier bound tight and taped. Edgeworth never remembered what he muttered in response, only flight's blur of walls and colour but Fey must not have minded -- she had no perfection to guard. She came again and again and Edgeworth tightened fists by his sides, to stillness, and began forming limp, misshapen small talk. Persistence was another of Fey's traits; her level gaze wore him weak sand, and he could never escape quick enough.

And she worked nails under the sticky tape, pried gentle until he couldn't manage to resent it. Her voice chimed in the courthouse halls, _Edgeworth_ carved from air; was this what care sounded like? Was it normal to talk with another human being that way, with such inane remarks about the world and a warmth rising inside him? It had to be -- his memories still smothered in darkness, they were no aid. The warmth grew pleasant, sun through deep water. He didn't mind talking to Fey -- a bizarre thought but he held it, cupped the spark in his palms and let it sear. Edgeworth didn't mind talking to her. Making an excuse and leaving felt like cowardice; he did it anyway, every time.

Another layer wore away as her posture eased, as her gaze lit with curiosity. Edgeworth didn't want to recognize it, and regretted every meeting but it was too late -- she touched his arm, moth-wing soft, and her head tilted. Potential, invitation: something silky and night-coloured as her motive but then what was his? The prosecutor Edgeworth bristled, someone else shivered and there he was between them, wishing the prickling of sweat away.

Words were one thing to speak, another to choose. Fey sounded genuine when she asked if something was wrong, a note of concern in her voice that made the shivering worse. Swallowing thick terror, Edgeworth confessed, hissed his weakness and couldn't look at her. The moth-touch returned. It was alright, she said.

It wasn't. The all-consuming knowledge of loss crept in but he was Prosecutor Edgeworth -- he didn't do that.

He couldn't remember agreeing to meet, or any of the doubtless fumbling steps between. The darkness swallowed those, too. There was only a dim-lit hallway, a wall at his back and Fey's supple press against his chest, against his racing heart. He was so tense, she breathed, was he sure? Another layer to be opened and the fear spiked hot; his words failed. But a feeling he couldn't name dragged his hand up, let it hesitate, alight and settle on the curve of her hip -- cunning rival and strange ally and very much a woman. She smiled. A tug of slim hands behind his neck, downward and she kissed him -- gentle, exquisite through every vein.

And Fey -- Mia, she was Mia here -- watched patient, feline. His numb hands pleaded with the cravat's tie -- who was he, sitting there? Edgeworth was perfect; Miles was a boy long dead. Just a man, then, just someone weak enough to be made of flesh. She nudged his hands aside and loosed the last of the knot -- he was all knots, every layer passed brought more, they sat on the edge of Fey's neat-made _bed_ and the very _implications_--

Miles, she murmured and he filled with agony, it was fine. Lips grazed his jawline, a feather brush; she peeled jacket's weight from his shoulders.

He drew a breath, shaking, slow. Mia shifted with a tremor of mattress springs and his fear bit harsh -- what was perfection if he lacked courage, lacked drive? His hands jerked to weak fists in his lap. Forgive me, he asked.

She did. She took his hand, guided it to her curve of hip, and tugged on his neck once more.

Buttons popping free of their holes, zippers rasping, every heartbeat an acid pain blurring into the next. Cool air licked over his skin and the details echoed each other -- a clipped breath, a murmur low in her throat, an inviting arch of back. It was a skill to be learned; Mia smiled coy and taught, her curves soft under his fingertips, skin salt-savoury, details laying bare the truth. Secret evenings multiplied. The cool satin fall of her hair stayed phantom on his chest.

The scream faded -- sometimes, only sometimes.

Immediately afterward was hardest, that moment where his pulse still drummed crescendo, before the mattress stilled, when he _knew_ the cosmos weren't shaking but couldn't believe. Dark-smouldering gaze stayed etched inside his eyelids -- rival gaze, seeking an fighter, a lover, an equal, even as her velvet fingertips traced his brow, stroked his bangs aside. Mia learned not to call him that, she knew better; he could hear _Miles_ waiting on her tongue, feel it in her breath but whose name was it, who did she see? No layers for padding, nothing but weakness raw and a man without a name; he bled every time, he bled.

Cloth layers weren't the same anymore; he was naked under the suit, ever vulnerable. Papers sat illegible in his hands with every unbidden detail -- a keen cry, a touch ghosting over the ridge of his collarbone, nothing could shut them out. He lingered in his office one day, watching the sepia depths of his teacup and Edgeworth returned, sudden and pride-stiff. Edgeworth knew what had to be done.

Mia -- or Fey, he couldn't tell anymore -- folded her arms when she saw him, a gentle grimness tightening her mouth: she knew. The courthouse hall stood deathly still around them, air close, silence humming. He couldn't wrench _I'm sorry_ from his tongue and it didn't matter; slim hands crept to his back. In lightning's clarity, in sharp disbelief, he kissed her and every nuance burned, lip and tongue and sigh of breath, a touch-image to banish the rest.

She hoped he'd find what he needed, Mia told him and she bled too, that fierce care in her eyes. It wasn't until he left, back straight and pace quick down the hall, that he realised she could have called him Miles, he'd accept it but Miles was still a person he didn't know.

Edgeworth got a new layer, a skin of ice on chill water. When the next trial against Fey came, he smirked and she didn't disappoint.


End file.
